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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22836082">Take These Broken Wings</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ObliObla/pseuds/ObliObla'>ObliObla</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Obli's Fuckruary 2020 [17]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Lucifer (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Established Relationship, F/M, Fuckruary 2020 (Lucifer TV), Oral Sex, Rope Bondage, Shibari, Smut</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 14:28:25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,868</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22836082</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ObliObla/pseuds/ObliObla</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Orgies are no longer held in the Devil’s penthouse—though Lucifer would be the first to say, <i>Never say never</i>—and he is, on the whole, glad for it. For what glory graces this space these days is well worth any potential sacrifice.</p><p>And today, well, today is a special day if Lucifer says so himself.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Chloe Decker/Lucifer Morningstar</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Obli's Fuckruary 2020 [17]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1619344</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>35</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>147</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Take These Broken Wings</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Day 17! (It's definitely not the 17th, but bear with me) Prompt: Upside Down/Shibari</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Orgies are no longer held in the Devil’s penthouse—though Lucifer would be the first to say, <em> Never say never</em>—and he is, on the whole, glad for it. For what glory graces this space these days is well worth any potential sacrifice.</p><p>Besides, just because the penthouse no longer groans under the weight of a dozen or more (or many, <em> many </em> more) doesn’t mean the various attachments he’s acquired over the years don’t see the occasional use. Chloe (née the Detective) has proved well-willing to engage in all manner of pleasures. At least, after that kerfuffle downstairs was fully dealt with.</p><p>And today, well, today is a special day if Lucifer says so himself. Not because of any human holy day marked upon their calendars, but for one he has marked upon his very soul—the anniversary of the day they first met. And, perhaps more relevantly, the anniversary of the first time she handcuffed him.</p><p>Tonight, he plans to rather return the favor. And then some. If she’s amenable, of course. Which she is. He checked. Twice. And no, he’s not nervous. At all.</p><p>Anyway.</p><p>He has rarely been so glad to be as well-versed in any subject as he is now, ensconced in a closet set off from his main toy room, perusing his collection of bindings. He’s never been much for ritual, but there is something relaxing about being surrounded by the tools of his kinder trade.</p><p>He once spent a revelatory month learning <em> hojojutsu </em> at the knee of a delightful Onno-bugeisha by the name of Kiku—utilizing the <em> asanawa </em> she used to subdue criminals to bind him instead, the hemp biting beautifully (if always painlessly) into his skin. When she trusted him enough to strip her armor and let down her naginata, he softened the ropes with heat and oil and bound her at her request. Her bindings had been undyed, and there had been no hooks carefully secured to walls or ceilings or floors, but they made do.</p><p>His detective, however, has no need to ‘make do’ with anything. Not with the plethora of colors, styles, lengths, and materials that reside within what he has affectionately nicknamed the ‘linen closet’. He cracks himself up, sometimes.</p><p>He’s getting off topic.</p><p>He calms his mind with some difficulty and refocuses on the task at hand, pressing past the synthetic ropes and silks used for western style bondage and uncovering the hempen bindings shibari prefers. Gray, white, silver, pale gold—he’s been planning this for weeks, envisioning the structures in his mind, but the particulars of the katas he’ll use to achieve the final product remain unformed. The pleasure of this art form, he has found, lies in the process of discovery. He hopes they will find their way together.</p><p>He retrieves more rope than they’ll probably use, already cut to the appropriate lengths and treated for comfort, and carries them up to the main floor of the penthouse, ensconcing them in the closet off his bedroom. It wouldn’t do to intimidate his detective—though he knows how formidable she can be—at least, not unless she desires intimidation. Anything she desires he will grant, of course. Eventually. But there is also pleasure to be found in momentary denial.</p><p>The elevator dings. Show time.</p><p>He can tell she’s nervous by the shortness of her breath and the way she shifts her weight as she steps out of the lift and into the main room. But she was far more anxious before he (quite literally) showed her the ropes and demonstrated several simple techniques on himself, then on her. Her slight blush at the highly informative seminar they attended brings a smile to his face as he joins her by the bar. How fortunate it was that Ikue owed him a favor.</p><p>Chloe is on her phone, undoubtedly double-checking Daniel’s arrangement to pick up Beatrice, and he waits in silence, sending off a quick text, observing the tension in her back and shoulders, the furrow in her brow, the way the light from the slowly dying sun casts her hair into gold that tempers the shadows of…</p><p>He’s getting off topic. Again. But damn and blast is it difficult to focus when she looks so casually beautiful. Or formally beautiful. Or, to be perfectly honest, whenever she’s in his presence at all, for she always looks perfect to him, even in the ugliest of ugly sweaters and the most sensible of brown shoes.</p><p>“Thanks, Dan,” she says and hangs up, dropping her phone onto the bar. There’s still worry in the subtle lines of her face, but he knows that, done properly, he ought to be able to smooth it out. She glances over at him and slumps onto a stool. “Hey, Lucifer.”</p><p>“Hello, love.” He pours them glasses from the wine that he decanted earlier and settles behind her to undo her tight ponytail and press his fingertips into the knots at the base of her skull. “Long day?”</p><p><em> “Meetings,” </em> she groans, taking a sip of the red and sighing. She elbows him lightly in the ribs. “Could have used you today.”</p><p>“Mm, well, you know how much I love to be used by <em> you.” </em> He lets his tone turn suggestive, but his hands remain chaste, trailing down to her shoulders to massage out the tension there.</p><p>“Yes,” she whispers as she sags against him, rolling her neck slowly as he works out the kinks. “Monday, you’re going to come in and help me with the paperwork. <em> And </em> the politics.”</p><p>“Whatever you say, dear.” He moves further down her back, pressing his thumbs into the tight muscle on either side of her spine.</p><p>“I need your… devilish charms.” She moans softly as he moves to her hips. “And maybe your hands.”</p><p><em> “Anything </em>you say, darling.”</p><p>The elevator dings again, and his sometimes shockingly prim detective pulls away from him as Arturo makes his way inside with a wheeled cart. He knew returning the tension to her eased muscles was a risk, but it was worth it to not serve her a lukewarm dinner. He slips a hundie into Arturo’s hand with a low, “gracias,” before the chef disappears back into the lift.</p><p>Chloe watches him go, taking another sip of her wine. “What favor did you do for him?”</p><p>She asks, now. She’s not necessarily happy with all of his answers, but she always listens to his explanations.</p><p>“Do you remember Junior, from the murder early in our partnership?”</p><p>“The... chef? The chef you had serve my family when we still thought he poisoned his father?”</p><p>He chuckles softly, lost in memories of tamales and a truly delightful mole sauce. He’d known he was a good lad all along. “Yes! Well, I got Arturo a job at <em> Sol de Javier </em>. And a green card.”</p><p>She blinks. “And what does he do for you?”</p><p>“Tacos.”</p><p>“Just… tacos?”</p><p>“There’s nothing ‘just’ about these tacos, I assure you.” With a flourish, he lifts the cloches, and there is a moment of well-deserved awed silence as steam rises delicately from the buche, carnitas, lengua, and asada tacos arranged in concentric circles around central trays of crema, fresh guacamole, and salsas roja and verde. For after dinner, he knows there are two slices of tres leches cake in the refrigerated part of the cart.</p><p>He cannot wait.</p>
<hr/><p>“That… was amazing,” Chloe announces as Lucifer piles the dishes back onto the cart. He rolls it into the elevator to be retrieved later, then shuts and locks the door. (She insisted on the lock once partner time became naked cuddle time on the regular.)</p><p>“I’ll have to ask Arturo to bring his new truck around to your residence during the urchin’s next birthday,” he says idly, washing their wine glasses and pulling out one of his mellower scotches. In fact, perhaps he ought to send Arturo around for Taco Tuesday on occasion as well. Daniel is, he will admit, a reasonably competent cook, but nothing he or Chloe might concoct could ever match the sublime unctuousness of that roasted, marinated pork belly.</p><p>“Really?”</p><p>He turns back to her with the scotch and two glasses. “Why not? I know how much the child adores chorizo.” Her good taste is one thing he’s glad to take credit for.</p><p>His attempt to fill the glasses is interrupted by a sudden armful of detective. He wraps his arms low around her waist as she leans up to press a kiss to his lips that tastes of caramel and wine.</p><p>“What was that for?” he asks when she pulls away.</p><p>She smiles softly. “I just… I really love you sometimes.”</p><p>He grins back, baffled but pleased. But he has <em> plans </em> tonight, and he will not be diverted. He leans against the bar in a well-practiced maneuver and offers one of the glasses of scotch, taking a sip from his own to settle his again encroaching nerves. How novel it still is to not be able to pull her desires out of thin air. “So, feeling up to it still?”</p><p>She takes the glass and clinks it against his. “Where do we start?” she asks with a sly grin.</p><p>He runs his tongue along the inside of his teeth and gestures toward the bedroom. “Shall we?”</p><p>She takes his hand, and they surmount the short staircase together. He guides her to lie in the middle of the bed and takes another drink before joining her. They kiss idly for a long while, exploring each other with a familiarity that makes his heart ache pleasantly, and she slowly loses clothing, tossed at the foot of the bed to be retrieved later. He properly finishes the massage he started before dinner until she’s boneless on the bed, lying on her back. When she reaches for his shirt collar, he takes her hands in his and pins them above her head.</p><p>“Hey,” she mumbles, eyes half closed, “that’s <em> my </em>shirt.”</p><p>He smiles softly and leans down to brush a kiss over her brow. “Not tonight, my love.”</p><p>“No?” She’s well aware of the plan, of course. But he knows how much she loves these little games.</p><p>“Tonight,” he says, letting her hands free and pressing a kiss to her lips, “I take care of you. Now, how does that sound?”</p><p>“Sounds nice,” she whispers, and her eyes fall fully shut.</p><p>He pulls away to stand beside the bed, and when she continues to lie still, he heads to the closet to retrieve the first phase of ropes. He lines them up, one by one, at the foot of the bed.</p><p>He starts by encouraging her to sit up in the middle of the bed. He folds the first rope—a silver-gray that contrasts beautifully with her tanned skin—in half, loops it around her chest below her breasts, and pulls the leading strands through the loop. He secures the hitch tightly against her spine and leans down to brush her hair aside.</p><p>“How’s that?”</p><p>She hums, takes a deep breath, then relaxes. “It’s good.”</p><p>“Excellent.”</p><p>He pulls the open, double-stranded end over her shoulder and down, laying a line of rope between her breasts, then works his way back up on the other side and secures another loop above them. She shivers each time his hands brush her sensitive skin, and he smiles as her eyes slip closed again, tension bleeding out of her. When he runs a line over her left shoulder to complete the harness, he presses a kiss to the scar above her collarbone, slipping behind her to do the same with the opposite side.</p><p>“Feels okay?” he asks softly, freeing a few strands of hair from where he’s working. “Can you breathe properly?”</p><p>She nods and rests her cheek against his for a moment. “Yeah, it’s nice.”</p><p>He finishes the harness by twisting the remaining rope in a vine-like pattern down her spine, then helps her to lie on her stomach, her face turned to the side. He picks up the next piece, this one shorter and a slightly paler gray, and considers his options. Symmetry is fine and pretty enough, but there is something truly sublime in imperfection.</p><p>Before he can get lost in all the subtle signs of her increasing relaxation, of how she is finally letting go of the stresses of the day, the month, the year, he slips a simple tie around her left ankle, then carefully binds calf to thigh with numerous loops and twists that keep the pressure off any one point. He performs a similar maneuver with her other leg, though he leaves the ropes a little looser. He picks up a fourth rope, identical to the previous ones, and threads it carefully through the chest harness, then through the bindings on each leg, pulling her left straight back and bringing her right carefully to the side. She is left splayed out on one side and pulled in tight on the other, breaths quickening ever so slightly.</p><p>The position leaves her wonderfully displayed, but he avoids touching between her legs entirely, and she groans softly. Well knowing the strange, unbalanced pleasure of asymmetrical bondage, he runs a slow, calming hand down her spine and asks, “How are you doing?”</p><p>“Great,” she mumbles, and he presses a kiss to the back of her neck. He’s considering the logistics of arm bindings, reaching for another rope, when she speaks again. “Uh, Lucifer?”</p><p>“Yes, love?”</p><p>Her hips shift restlessly. “I... have to pee.”</p><p>“Ah.” Swiftly, he frees her legs, though he keeps the chest harness intact, then helps her to the bathroom. There is something incredibly endearing about these minor human inconveniences; he wonders idly if he might be going mad and decides he doesn’t much care. After she washes her hands, she continues to stand at the mirror, staring at herself. </p><p>“Problem?”</p><p>She runs a finger over one of the ropes. “Did you... put a pentagram on my chest?”</p><p>His earlier nervousness comes back with a vengeance. “Possi— I mean... That is to say...”</p><p>She traces the empty space outlined by the central pentagon and smirks. “It’s actually kind of hot.”</p><p>Damn, but his trousers are tight suddenly. He adjusts himself and pushes the feeling down. It wouldn’t do to be distracted.</p><p>When they return to the bedroom, he brings the rest of the ropes with him, setting them aside. He rebinds her legs and settles at her side to tie the lower harness. He selects another silver-gray rope and loops it between waist and pelvis in a criss-cross pattern, pulling it tight. She hisses in a breath, and he pauses.</p><p>“Okay?” he asks, pressing his palm flat to the base of her spine.</p><p>She wriggles her hips and arches her back. “Yeah.”</p><p>He lies down beside her and brushes the hair from her face. Her eyes are heavy-lidded, and her breaths come slow and deep and even. He kisses her brow, her cheek, her lips.</p><p>“You’re so beautiful like this,” he whispers into her mouth.</p><p>She shivers and nuzzles against him, and he breathes her in slowly.</p><p>He rises to secure a few lines between the two harnesses, then turns to work on her arms. He applies simple hitches to both of her wrists in gold and binds her right arm behind her back. Her left he leaves free; they found during the practice sessions that the tension was painful on this shoulder.</p><p>
  <em> I don’t want to die. </em>
</p><p>
  <em> I won’t let you. </em>
</p><p>And he won’t allow her to be hurt, either. Not unless she asks, of course.</p><p>The final rope before they move to the living room with its wall and ceiling hitches is of palest gold, one he steamed and burned himself, treating it repeatedly with mineral oil until it was smooth as silk. It is softer even than he keeps the others, and he twists a careful knot into it before lifting her hips to hitch the rope to the front of the lower harness. He sets her back onto the mattress and pulls the trailing edge between her legs. He threads the rope between her labia, and the knot settles against her clit.</p><p>Otherwise untouched, she shivers, her back arching. He calms her with his hands, chasing away any momentary discomfort with his fingertips between her legs.</p><p><em> “Shit,” </em> she breathes as he slowly pulls it tighter. When she cries out, he secures the other end to the backside of the harness.</p><p>“Alright?” he asks.</p><p>“Mmhmm,” she sighs.</p><p>He kisses her cheek before rising from the bed. “I’ll be right back.”</p><p>She mumbles an acknowledgement, and he gathers up the rest of the ropes, heading to the main living space. He lines them up on the bar and selects a few of the longest ones—white, these, with a pearlescent shine to them. Manifesting his wings, he visits the waiting hitching points one by one and attaches a rope to each.</p><p>“Are you flying in there?”</p><p>“Possibly,” he sing-songs. He and the wings still have a complicated relationship, but he must admit they’re far easier to deal with when facilitating such joy. He performs a rude gesture in the direction of the ceiling as a matter of principle before returning to the ground and withdrawing them with a snap. He walks back to the bar and pours a glass of water before climbing the stairs and settling on the side of the bed. He helps her hold her head up, bringing the glass to her lips. She takes a few sips, then looks up at him, gaze bleary but challenging.</p><p>“Now what?” she asks in a low voice, hips shifting again, though from pleasure this time, not any sort of discomfort.</p><p>“Now, the real fun begins.”</p><p>He takes ahold of the central point of the harness and slowly lifts, running the fingers of his other hand over the lines to ensure nothing is pulling taut that shouldn’t be. The true test of his ropework is that every strand applies only the pressure planned. As he uses his hands and eyes, so too does he reach out with the part of himself that unlocks doors and minds. That turns things on, as it were. That susses out desires to be fulfilled.</p><p>The ropes hold as intended, but as he pulls her fully off the mattress, she gasps. He pauses, and she reaches up with her free hand to clutch at his forearm. He lowers her back down and moves to check the ropes again, frowning. “Where is it pulling?”</p><p>“Lucifer…”</p><p>He follows the strands back to their origins, testing and tugging, reaching out again with his mind. “Where—?”</p><p>“It...it’s not.”</p><p>He blinks, unhands the ropes, and meets her face. Her flushed, somewhat embarrassed face. Years they have known each other, but she still baffles him. He wonders if she’ll ever stop, knows that if she ever does, he’ll mourn for it.</p><p>“It’s not?” he repeats.</p><p>She nods, rucking her hair up behind her. “I just, ah, forget that you can… do things like that sometimes. You could”—she bites her lip in a highly distracting manner—do it again?”</p><p>Ah. A leer spreads over his face, and he picks her up again much less hesitantly. Years they have been together, but her desires still surprise him. What a gift it is to be allowed to unravel them so slowly and so thoroughly.</p><p>He slips off the bed and walks them down the stairs, holding her high enough her trailing arm is kept far above the ground. Standing in the center of the prepared space, he uses his free hand to snag the various waiting ropes and attach them to the parts of the harness designed for the purpose. Slowly, she is turned around in his hold until she is on her back in his arms. When the final support line is secured, he allows himself to release his grip, other arm braced beneath her hips just in case. But everything holds.</p><p>“Oh, wow,” she breathes as he dares to take a step away—to ensure the pressure is appropriately distributed, of course, but also to admire what he’s, in the interest of her safety, been ignoring. </p><p>His detective is absolutely breathtaking. From her splayed legs, held slightly above his head, to the golden thread between her thighs, trembling with her every movement. From her breasts, surrounded by silver, nipples peaked, to the long line of her neck. From her face, suspended upside down, eyes closed in a haze of bliss, to her hair, hanging down in a golden curtain.</p><p>She is utterly exquisite.</p><p>And she is smiling at him, blue eyes flitting open to watch. With her free arm, she reaches for him, and he is drawn inexorably forward, pulled by a thread of her own making to meet her needy flesh with his wanting hands. Were he a more poetic Devil, he’d compose sonnets in her honor, write odes to her beauty. But she is unutterably glorious, and what he cannot bring himself to say he expresses in heated caresses to every part of her.</p><p>He presses kisses beside each line that holds her legs apart and plays at the rope between her thighs until she keens. He smooths his palms over the curve of her arse and around and across the harness to cup her breasts. He kneels and kisses her, the tip of his nose brushing her chin, until her free arm comes up to tangle in his hair. When he withdraws with a nip to her lower lip, she whimpers and he chuckles.</p><p>“Aren’t you done?” she asks on a whine, reaching for him as he stands, fingertips brushing the front of his trousers before he takes a hasty step backward. He doesn’t have much faith in his concentration if she manages to get her hand on him, and his plans are far from finished.</p><p>“Not yet, my love,” he tells her before retrieving more ropes from the bar. “Do you trust me?”</p><p>“Yes,” she whispers.</p><p>“And has it been worth it thus far?”</p><p>
  <em> “Yes.” </em>
</p><p>“Then <em> patience.” </em> He returns to her side, but before she can try to unbutton his trousers again, he takes her hand, presses a kiss to the palm, and binds the gold around her wrist to one of the floor hitches. Arm extended downward, pulled into a somewhat awkward position, she pouts but doesn’t object. He grants attention to her chest for her compliance—suckling her nipples, sucking a bruise into the skin beneath the pentagram shape.</p><p>She groans as he retrieves yet more ropes, threading them into the upper harness, tying them together into a net of sorts that extends up from one shoulder and to the side from the other, a mirror of her leg placement. Long minutes are lost to the slow sounds of her breathing and the soft whisper of rope sliding against rope. Here, together, they find the place he’s been searching for, and there is nothing left in the world but the rope and skin under his hands, the sensation of locks being unlocked and desires being fulfilled shivering along his neurons.</p><p>The last rope is pale gold, as soft as the one still teasing between her legs. He twists it into a complicated pattern and loops it lightly around her neck, tying a knot at the end he affixes between her breasts, a kinder reflection of a bullet whose glorious agony still echoes in his leg even now. That moment of vulnerability will never leave him, no matter how many eons he lives. He kneels beside her again and brushes a kiss over her brow.</p><p>“Still with me?”</p><p>She licks her lips. “I-I think so.” She drifts forward a touch as her arm tenses, trying to reach out. “Lucifer, <em> please.” </em></p><p>“I’m done, I promise. Just… open your eyes for me, darling. That’s it.” He guides her head into a better position as her eyes flutter open and her gaze lands on herself, reflected in the darkness of the ceiling.</p><p>The right wing—built upon ropes of pearlescent white, gray, silver, and gold—extends upward in a gentle arc toward the ceiling. The left sweeps low from her shoulder, brushing the ground. He takes in hand the last few trailing lines, pulling them steadily downward, and they watch together as the wings billow in an imaginary breeze.</p><p>He tears his gaze away from the sight of her body, suspended, surrounded by the wings he fashioned her, and trains it instead on the wonder and trust and love in her eyes. And this, <em> this </em> is what he’s been waiting for. It was worth any amount of effort to find this moment, to plumb the depths of the joy and bliss on her face. To reach up and wipe away the sheen of sweat on her upper lip. To pepper her face with kisses as he kneels before her.</p><p>He doesn’t know how long they live in this moment together, but when his knees begin to ache with a mortal pain only she can grant him, he brings his hands back to her body.</p><p>He follows the entwined threads of the gold at her throat down between her breasts and watches her observe his movements through the darker glass of the ceiling. He plucks the faux bullet from where he placed it and removes the rope, dropping it to the floor. He returns to her breasts, and she inhales sharply as he cups them, as he teases her nipples and then abandons them again to paint heat over her belly. He runs a finger under the ropes there, and the change in pressure makes her gasp. There are superfluous strands here, too, and he peels them away as he goes. He stands and unravels the edges of the wings, leaving them frayed. He unloops a rope that was holding a modicum of weight, and she tenses at the change, blinking up at him.</p><p>“Shh,” he whispers, bending down to kiss her again. “I won’t let you fall.”</p><p>This he can do for her. This he can promise.</p><p>When the bulk of the wings hangs in broken splendor, he steps behind her and bows his head, running his tongue along the gold thread between her legs. She shivers and jerks, and he takes her gently by the hips as he kisses the knot over her clit. He licks pressure over the spot until her breaths shorten, then takes the rope between his teeth and tears it free. It hangs, like the other fallen ropes, in tatters around them as he takes her clit into his mouth, as he trails down to taste her, as she falls apart around his tongue with the bridge of his nose tight against her, a wave that causes her to pull into herself.</p><p>The wings shake as she comes down, and he loosens a few more ropes before lifting her slowly into an upright position. He pauses for a moment as the blood rushes from her head, giving her time to adjust.</p><p>“How do you feel?” he asks when her indistinct gaze focuses on his.</p><p>She tests the stretch of muscles and frowns. “My legs are kind of sore.”</p><p>He nods and supports her hips before removing the hitches between the harness and her ankle bindings. He takes down the bindings holding calves to thighs, and she groans in relief, hooking her legs over his shoulders. Presented with this undeniable opportunity, he buries his face back between her thighs. He takes his time, licking slow passes over her entrance, brushing her clit.</p><p>She moans softly, and the ropes pull as she tries to draw him closer. But he is merciful—he cannot truly deny her anything, after all—and he lets her grind against his face, buck her hips until he can’t breathe. But it doesn’t matter when she’s already clenching around his tongue again, so close to another edge from how patient she’s been. He wraps his lips around her clit and sucks, and she shouts as she topples over, the remnants of the wings thrashing with her movements.</p><p>Her wrist bindings come off next, stripped fast enough the ropes are likely ruined. But he can always buy more; what he <em> can’t </em> buy is the satisfied moan that leaves her lips when she can finally tangle her hands in his hair. As she teases out curls, sitting up to straddle his shoulders more fully, he removes the last of the ropes suspending her from the ceiling. Nothing remains attached to her but the harness with its silver pentagram. He pulls her down his body until her legs are wrapped around his waist and kisses her again. And again. And again.  When he pulls back, their foreheads fall together and they gaze into each other’s eyes.</p><p>“Thank you,” she whispers, brushing her thumb over his lip. “Thank you for not letting me fall.”</p><p>“Always,” he breathes, he promises, binding the vow with his lips on hers as they leave the tattered remains of fallen, broken wings behind for a warm bed and the more grounded grace of her body against his. Of her breaths on his cheek.</p><p>Of her heart in his hands.<br/>
<br/>
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